this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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by Karl Nerenberg • Rabble.ca

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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 23 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (18 children)

Well that's interesting. That seems like a pretty sound argument - we want less consumer spending, except on housing where we want more, so you need to offset the impact of rate hikes in just that sector. Or maybe we could try an alternate way to cool the economy, besides interest rates? It'd be risky though.

I still wonder why we have this problem in the first place. It sounds like our construction industry is unproductive for it's size but I can't fathom why.

[–] Anon819450514@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Inflation is a monetary issue. You need to vacuum the excess liquidity in the economic system by having high interest rates. There is no escape to that.

Maybe if we'd removed the limitations on the building height or other law that limits the housing offers, the private sector would build more houses, who knows.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Yes, we should absolutely do that too. Calgary is going to vote on blanket rezoning all single-family housing area to allow 4-plexes (with additional basement suites), for example.

I guess the "simple" solution, looking at this data, would be to give a special BoC interest rate specifically for financing certain housing loans and mortgages, and continue raising the rate for everything else. There might be pitfalls to that that I'm not considering, though. You'd want to be sure there's no way for other instruments to inappropriately get cheaper as a result.

[–] Powerpoint@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Tax speculators. It'll free up tons of housing.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 years ago

I'm skeptical. Buying an expensive asset and collecting nothing from it is usually a good way to lose money. Didn't Vancouver already do this a couple years ago anyway?

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